Tag Archives: SRA

How the new $1.1-billion in provincial funding for school repairs breaks down

June 28, 2016

On June 27, 2016, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter announced an investment of $1.1-billion to repair schools across the province.  Here is a detailed breakdown of how this investment will flow to school boards.

  • An increase of $500-million to school boards to use for school repairs this summer; $460-million of the $500-million total will be allocated via School Condition Improvement (SCI) funding and $40-million via School Renewal Allocation (SRA) funding.* When added to the existing funding commitment of $500-million in SCI funding and $320-million in SRA funding, the total funding for school repairs this 2015/16 year will total $1.3-billion.
  • An increase of $575-million to school boards to use for school repairs in 2016/17; $535-million of which will be allocated via SCI funding and $40-million via SRA funding. When added to the existing $500-million in SCI funding and $320-million in SRA funding, the total funding for school boards to use for school repairs next year in 2016/17 will be the $1.4-billion annual funding that Ontario’s Auditor-General said is needed to keep Ontario’s publicly funded schools in a state of good repair.

Fix Our Schools is pleased that this new level of annual funding for school repairs follows the Auditor General’s 2015 recommendation of $1.4-billion per year, an amount that represents the industry standard of investing 2.5% of a buildings replacement value in annual maintenance in order to keep that asset in a state of good repair. School buildings are public assets that the government has an obligation to keep well-maintained.

Fix Our Schools is also pleased that this money is being allocated to school boards based on their renewal needs and that the provincial government has committed to publicly posting detailed information regarding the condition and renewal needs of each of Ontario’s 4,900 public schools.

However, a $15-billion repair backlog has been allowed to accumulate in Ontario’s publicly funded schools over the past 20 years that is not going away anytime soon. Therefore, Fix Our Schools remains committed to working with all MPPs and School Boards to ensure that:

  • The new level of investment of $1.4-billion/year starts to decrease the $15-billion repair backlog that currently exists in Ontario’s publicly funded schools.
  • The issue of disrepair in Ontario’s schools is a major election issue in the next provincial election in 2018; and continues to be an important focus of our provincial government.

* Click here for more details on School Condition Improvement (SCI) funding and School Renewal Allocation (SRA) funding.